On May the 1st and 2nd, 2019, ruma rima, ruma whitu, teachers and some parent helpers went to the Arahura Marae to learn about the marae and it’s history.
The River
MY first favorite thing was going down to the river to look for Pounamu. When we got down to the River Jerry gave us some tips on how to find pounamu. He said not to look for green which is what we were all planning on doing because we were looking for Pounamu and Pounamu is green. Then he said that we should look for a white pasty colour. Then we were off. Me porsha and Ayah walked along the river till we come to sand and stone. The sand was so smooth and metallic. Porsha and Ayah played with the special sand while I looked for Pounamu In the river. I found a piece of serpentine Pounamu and gave it to Porsha since you are supposed to give your first piece of Pounamu to someone. Then we had a sculpture competition and Jerry judged it. There were 3 winners and then we went back to the marae.
Afternoon Activities
In the evening we had some activities that we we chose at school. I chose soap carving and tukutuku panels. I did soap carving first with Ms Barrow. She gave some soap and a Kebab stick, then pot out some laminated pieces of paper with some cool designs. I chose koru designs and carved them in. Then I started to carve it into a soap boat. There was loads of soap shavings. Ayah was on the other end of the and she had a really big pile of shavings. Me Ilish and Ryan tried to beat her pile of shavings. When we Finally did we had to go to are next evening rotation. My next evening rotation was Tukutuku panels with Mrs Glue. Riley, Alasker, Harper, and Billie were there. Mrs Glue showed us how to do it and then we were off. Riley kept on saying weird stuff and continuously talking and he wouldn't stop no matter what And it kept on messing up his tukutuku panels and needing Mrs Glue help. At one point I missed out because I was laughing too hard at what Riley was saying but Mrs Glue fixed it. The tukutuku panels were fun and a new experience.
The stories behind the beautiful carvings
The first sight you see when you walk into marae is the Gorgeous carvings being displayed up on the walls and each of those carvings has a story and all their stories are important to different tribes. We were sitting in the marae and Miss Ireland was reading the story about Poutini and Waitaiki. As were waiting for Jerry to come. Jerry came and we finished the story. Then we went outside to learn about all the carvings on the outside of the marae. First he said that the tekoteko was the only one in New Zealand made out of Pounamu which was pretty Amazing! He said that on the left was Waitaiki and that was the women's side and on the wall there was the women's moko kauae. And on the right was Poutini and on the back wall was the full face moko. He said that the women stand on the women's side and men on the men’s side. Then we went into the marae to see the carvings inside that looked like they took 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 years to do and we split into our classes and got to chose 2 caving per for Jerry to tell us about. My class chose two. The first story that went with the carving we chose first was back when the wars for pounamu were still going and 10 people from the East Coast where planning an attack to win Pounamu but there was a guy from the tribe that they were planning an attack on and he had some magic. He knew that the war party were coming to attack and that night he made a big storm and flipped all the Canoes of his enemies and all those that made it to land were killed because there were people waiting on land and then 3 days after the war one of the warriors from the East Coast came to bring back the heads of his chiefs that had died. He had to take back the chiefs head because they were sacred and he wanted to take them back home for burial. Personal comment
The thing I most enjoyed was that I had the chance to go to a marae it was amazing and thanks to everyone that helped :)
(: By Jordyn :)
